Brewers head home on cusp of division title

MIAMI -- Lest anyone downplay the adage that anything can happen in a best-of-three series, consider what transpired this weekend at loanDepot park.

In a potential National League Wild Card Series preview, the Brewers had Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta all lined up against a Marlins team without injured reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara or rookie phenom Eury Pérez, and without NL batting leader Luis Arraez after he slipped down the dugout steps and aggravated an ankle injury on Saturday when the lights went out as Miami’s closer entered the game.

Yet the Brewers dropped two of the three games in a set that ended with Peralta, “zapped” by a recent illness, allowing nine hits over three shaky innings of the 6-1 loss on Sunday as Milwaukee’s bid to claim a division crown was denied for a second straight day.

• Games remaining (6): vs. STL (3), vs. CHC (3)
• Standings update: The Brewers (88-68) hold a six-game lead over the Cubs (82-74) for first place in the National League Central. Milwaukee is the third-best division leader in the NL, meaning it would host a best-of-three NL Wild Card Series against the final Wild Card entrant starting on Oct. 3.
• Magic number: The Brewers' magic number over the Cubs to clinch the division title is one.

"There's no reason to be disappointed right now,” said manager Craig Counsell. “We put ourselves in a great position and there's no reason to be disappointed."

It’s not as if the Brewers were merely getting their work in on the way to October. Yes, they clinched a postseason berth thanks to Friday’s 16-run outburst behind Burnes, but they still needed one more win -- or one more Cubs loss -- to clinch the NL Central title, so these were big games. After missing a second straight chance to get it done themselves, the Brewers retreated to the visiting clubhouse following Sunday’s final out to root on the Rockies at Wrigley Field.

Pitcher Wade Miley planted himself directly under one of the televisions while other players sat at their lockers and hung on every pitch of a one-run game. The room stirred when the Rockies’ leadoff hitter walked in the ninth, and stirred some more when the next batter walked as well.

But the Cubs hung on to win, 4-3, pushing the Brewers’ quest to clinch the division back home to Milwaukee on Tuesday night with the Cardinals in town at 6:40 p.m. CT. The Cubs will be in Atlanta, scheduled to play the Braves at 6:20 p.m. CT.

But first, a well-earned off-day. The Brewers just completed a stretch of 17 consecutive days with games, over which they went 11-6 and reached the cusp of clinching the division.

"We wanted to do it since yesterday,” said Brewers shortstop Willy Adames, knowing that champagne was on ice nearby. “But now, when we do it at home, I think it's going to be more special.”

Whether the Brewers clinch the Central or the unthinkable happens and they lose every game the rest of the regular season while the Cubs win every game, the next step would be the same: A best-of-three Wild Card Series to move on to the more familiar best-of-five NL Division Series.

Last year, the first postseason under this expanded system, showed that anything can happen in a three-game series. Of the four Wild Card Series -- two in the NL and two in the AL -- the home team prevailed in only one: The Guardians over the Rays by a score of 2-1 in Game 1 and 1-0 in a 15-inning Game 2 marathon.

Anything can happen.

“You just understand that it’s part of the game,” Peralta said. “We just have to keep going, keep our heads up and try to win. That’s it. I think those moments are going to come and we have to keep moving forward.”

Peralta rode a hot streak into Sunday’s start against the Marlins, having gone 6-1 with a 1.96 ERA over his previous 10 starts while becoming the eighth different pitcher in franchise history to top 200 strikeouts in a season.

But this start was a struggle from the very first inning, when the Marlins opened the day with three straight hits and forced Peralta to escape with a strikeout and an inning-ending double play. In the second, Jon Berti’s home run on a center-cut slider gave the Marlins the lead, and they extended it in the third with four straight hits to open the inning, starting with Josh Bell’s homer on a fastball at the top of the zone and ending with Bryan De La Cruz's two-run single.

“He’s been sick. He was really sick on Friday night,” Counsell said. “I think that zapped some of his energy. He was feeling good today coming to the park, but I do think that zapped some of his energy.”

Said Peralta: “Things didn’t go well, but I was good today. Probably my body wasn’t 100 percent, but I was good to pitch today.”

It marked the second straight game that the Brewers fell into a 4-0 deficit. On Saturday, Woodruff’s velocity was down while he allowed four earned runs over five innings.

"They're in the fight. They want to win,” Adames said of the Marlins. “It's not like they want to go home after this, they want to go to the playoffs and they're playing to win. I think people are forgetting that they have a really good team.”